Struggles with breaking balls, which leads to swings-and-misses and weak contact on the ground. Must improve contact skills to project as an average-to-better hitter for batting average at the big league level. Despite plus raw power, has trouble pulling the ball with lift. Swing shows too much hook and lacks leverage due to looping hands during swing load. Struggles to get good wood on inside fastballs.

Thank Christ you don't see +fastballs on the hands and breaking stuff at the big league level.

Struggles with breaking balls, which leads to swings-and-misses and weak contact on the ground. Must improve contact skills to project as an average-to-better hitter for batting average at the big league level. Despite plus raw power, has trouble pulling the ball with lift. Swing shows too much hook and lacks leverage due to looping hands during swing load. Struggles to get good wood on inside fastballs.

Struggles with breaking balls, which leads to swings-and-misses and weak contact on the ground. Must improve contact skills to project as an average-to-better hitter for batting average at the big league level. Despite plus raw power, has trouble pulling the ball with lift. Swing shows too much hook and lacks leverage due to looping hands during swing load. Struggles to get good wood on inside fastballs.

Struggles with breaking balls, which leads to swings-and-misses and weak contact on the ground. Must improve contact skills to project as an average-to-better hitter for batting average at the big league level. Despite plus raw power, has trouble pulling the ball with lift. Swing shows too much hook and lacks leverage due to looping hands during swing load. Struggles to get good wood on inside fastballs.

Thank Christ you don't see +fastballs on the hands and breaking stuff at the big league level.

Struggles with breaking balls, which leads to swings-and-misses and weak contact on the ground. Must improve contact skills to project as an average-to-better hitter for batting average at the big league level. Despite plus raw power, has trouble pulling the ball with lift. Swing shows too much hook and lacks leverage due to looping hands during swing load. Struggles to get good wood on inside fastballs.

Thank Christ you don't see +fastballs on the hands and breaking stuff at the big league level.

e0y2e3 wrote:The Indians don't own Adam Miller's corpse anymore? Because if they do that's 5 of the top 43....

No. He decided to leave when fans suggested he hack off a finger to get rid of the injury and generate more movement on his pitches.

He's with the Yankees. They're probably buying him stem cell procedures in Europe and he'll come back with seven fingers, all of which help throw a ball 118mph.

I still think that could have worked.

In fact, they could have just sewn the hacked off finger to a mouse to keep it in good shape for a few years. If the pitching thing didn't work out they could have just reattached it. No harm no foul.

Find a hole in that plan asshole.

The original plan made no mention of fingers sewn to mice. Had it, I would have been strongly in favor of it from the get-go. Better yet, they should have sewn the finger to your ass so you no longer were required to pay teen age boys to use theirs.

GM's know they can hang onto their top prospects and the other team will either walk away or cave in and settle for less. They weren't going to get an Ubaldo type haul for Choo, because no one's stupid enough to give away their top two prospects anymore...well, except Antonetti.

A bad trade is worse than no trade. Anybody want to see another Pomeranz for Ubaldo deal, or another Brandon Phillips debacle?

There's nothing to be done at this point. When Lowe and Tomlin are in your rotation and you're getting ready to replace them with Kluber and Hernandez, and when you're last in the AL in scoring since the AS break, there's no chance. Especially when you've been hammered by the dregs of your division four straight games.

The Tribe should release the following players at the end of the season, or in some cases sooner (2012 salaries):

That frees up about $27 million, minus the raises due to the current players. I'm guessing around $15 million available, assuming they decide to keep payroll the same.

They need to use that money to add a Josh Willingham type bat at 1st base or left field, and a legitimate starting pitcher. Go for quality, not quantity. One Willingham trumps a Kotchman, Damon, and Lowe. We have guys in Columbus who can match that production at a fraction of the cost.

Then they need Chisenhall and Carrasco to stay healthy and have breakout seasons like Kipnis is doing this year.

That adds four significant players. Not enough to compete with Detroit, but enough to move up to 85 wins and keep it interesting at least through the end of July when they'll have to trade Choo. That's about all a franchise like this can hope for, really.

dazindiansfanuk wrote:This team is not going to add a significant piece via free agency - regardless of how much money is coming off the books!

You could very well be right. However, I'm hoping the Indians will learn from the Willingham experience, where he was ready to sign with the Indians if they just matched the Twins' three-year offer. The Indians would not go beyond two years (perhaps still smarting from the Dellucci signing) and Willy ended up with the Twins, where he's having a monster season as a right-handed power-hitting left fielder.

I'm hoping they will realize that they have to get a little more aggressive and take a calculated risk at some point. They did that last year with Ubaldo and it's not working out. They did it with Kerry Wood and it didn't work out there either. They did it with Hafner and Westbrook - same result.

I really think this team has gotten extremely gun-shy about giving up top prospects like Brandon Phillips and Drew Pomeranz or giving out multi-year big dollar contracts. They have not done well in the recent past with deals like that. Their big successes have come from the smaller deals involving Choo, Asdrubal, C. Perez, Santana, Joe Smith, and McAlister.

But if they ever want to get to the 90-win level they're going to have to take a risk on a guy like Willingham and not just sit back and wait for the farm to produce or hope they can keep flipping Casey Blakes and Austin Kearns for Santanas and McAlisters. I hope they learned that lesson.

Prosecutor wrote:A bad trade is worse than no trade. Anybody want to see another Pomeranz for Ubaldo deal, or another Brandon Phillips debacle?

There's nothing to be done at this point. When Lowe and Tomlin are in your rotation and you're getting ready to replace them with Kluber and Hernandez, and when you're last in the AL in scoring since the AS break, there's no chance. Especially when you've been hammered by the dregs of your division four straight games.

The Tribe should release the following players at the end of the season, or in some cases sooner (2012 salaries):

dazindiansfanuk wrote:This team is not going to add a significant piece via free agency - regardless of how much money is coming off the books!

You could very well be right. However, I'm hoping the Indians will learn from the Willingham experience, where he was ready to sign with the Indians if they just matched the Twins' three-year offer. The Indians would not go beyond two years (perhaps still smarting from the Dellucci signing) and Willy ended up with the Twins, where he's having a monster season as a right-handed power-hitting left fielder.

I'm hoping they will realize that they have to get a little more aggressive and take a calculated risk at some point. They did that last year with Ubaldo and it's not working out. They did it with Kerry Wood and it didn't work out there either. They did it with Hafner and Westbrook - same result.

I really think this team has gotten extremely gun-shy about giving up top prospects like Brandon Phillips and Drew Pomeranz or giving out multi-year big dollar contracts. They have not done well in the recent past with deals like that. Their big successes have come from the smaller deals involving Choo, Asdrubal, C. Perez, Santana, Joe Smith, and McAlister.

But if they ever want to get to the 90-win level they're going to have to take a risk on a guy like Willingham and not just sit back and wait for the farm to produce or hope they can keep flipping Casey Blakes and Austin Kearns for Santanas and McAlisters. I hope they learned that lesson.

You go ahead and hope..... I'm going to judge them based on past experience.

The last time we tried to fill two gaping holes with free agents we ended up with Kotchman and Damon.

Unless the local economy has changed, their philosophy won't change and the "talent" we can get in free agency won't change either.